Greedy songwriters, composers, and music publishers are leaning on politicians to make Apple and and other digital duke boxes pay for the 30 second clips that they provide for advertising.

The groups say that their work is still downloaded and someone should pay them. They want Apple to pay licensing fees to ASCAP and BMI for the downloads of TV shows and films it sells and for the partial downloads which are usually used for advertising. If the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast Music (BMI), and other performing-rights groups gets its way there will be more price hikes for online music.

Apparently when the groups had no joy trying to screw more money out of digital content providers they decided to call up their friends in Washington. Part of the problem is that the movie studios, big recording companies, TV networks, and online retailers who have beaten a similar path before have succeeded in bleeding the industry dry and left nothing for those who actually produce the music.

President of the Songwriters' Guild of America Rick Carnes in theory he made 9.1 cents off a song sale and that means a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money. "People think we're making a fortune off the Web, but it's a tiny amount. We need multiple revenue streams or this isn't going to work."

While we are sympathetic to the musicians and songwriters, the idea of paying yet another body loads of cash for a single is getting a bit daft and if these guys can't sort themselves out and work together collectively without one ripping the other off then we don't see why the consumer should pay. It it is like buying a car and the bloke who sells you the engine wants to charge you extra while the guy who makes the wheels sends you a bill for extra cash.